Chapter X: Introduction: To the Propylæa (4)

A wood. Goetz and George lying in wait for a wild animal. It is painfully evident out here that Goetz cannot cross his boundaries. We realize the mischief of the peasant war. The monster advances; Max Stumpf, whom they have dragged along with them as a guide and leader, decides to leave them and the position. Goetz, half persuaded, half compelled, yields, announces himself as their captain for four weeks and breaks his ban. The peasants are divided in spirit, and the devil is loose.

Weislingen appears at the head of knights and soldiers against the rebels, in order especially to capture Goetz, and thus free himself from the hateful feeling of inferiority. Relations with his wife are very strained; Franz’s overwhelming passion becomes more and more evident. Goetz and George in the painful situation of being associated and implicated with rebels.

A secret judgment is issued against him. Goetz flees to the gipsies and is captured by the Imperial troops.

Adelaide’s palace. The adventuress parts with the happy youth, after she has prevailed upon him to bring poison to her husband. An apparition appears; a powerful scene follows.

From these dismal surroundings, we pass to a bright spring garden. Maria is sleeping in a bower of flowers. Lerse comes to her, and rouses her to beg Weislingen for her brother’s life.

Weislingen’s palace. The dying man, with Maria and Franz. Goetz’s sentence to death is revoked, and we leave the dying hero in the prison garden.

* * * * *

The principles of the earlier revisions were again applied in this case. The number of scene-changes was lessened, securing more opportunity for the development of the characters, the action was condensed, and, though with many sacrifices, the play finally approximated genuine dramatic form. Why it has not in this form spread more widely on the German stage will be eventually understood, I presume, since critics are not disinclined to give accounts of the reception on the stage of the plays of the various German authors, the treatment they receive and the length of time their pieces last.

If these remarks are favorably received, we shall probably discuss next the introduction of foreign plays, such as has already taken place at the Weimar Theatre. This includes Greek and French, English, Italian and Spanish plays, besides the comedies of Terence and Plautus, in which masks are made use of.

Most necessary would it be perhaps to discuss Shakespeare and combat the prejudice that the works of this extraordinary writer should be given in the German Theatre in their complete length and breadth. This false idea has meant the suppression of the older revisions of Schroeder, and prevented others from prospering.

It must be emphatically insisted, and with solid reason, that in this case as in so many others the reader must be distinguished from and part company with the spectator; each has his rights, and neither should be permitted to injure the other’s.

LUDWIG TIECK’S _DRAMATURGIC FRAGMENTS_

(1826)

My mind has been stimulated in many ways by this noteworthy book.

As a dramatic poet, as a writer who by extensive travels and by personal observation and study of foreign theatres has qualified himself as a critic of insight and knowledge in connection with our native theatre, and as one who by scholarly study has fitted himself to be a historian of past and present times, the author has an assured position with the German public, which is here especially evident and notable. In him, criticism rests upon pleasure, pleasure upon knowledge, and these criteria, which are usually thought of as distinct, are here fused into a satisfying whole.

His reverence for Kleist is highly praiseworthy. As far as I am personally concerned, in spite of the sincerest desire to appreciate him justly, Kleist always arouses in me horror and aversion, as of a body intended by nature to be beautiful, but seized by an incurable illness. Tieck is the very reverse; he dwells rather upon the good that has been left by nature; the deformity he puts aside, excusing much more than he blames. For, after all, this man of genius deserves only our pity; on this point we do reach agreement.

I also agree with him willingly when, as champion for the unity, indivisibility and inviolability of Shakespeare’s plays, he wants to have them put on the stage without revision or modification from beginning to end.

When ten years ago I was of the contrary opinion, and made more than one attempt to select only the particularly effective parts of Shakespeare’s plays, rejecting the disturbing and the diffuse, I was quite right, as director of the theatre, in doing so. For I had had experience in tormenting myself and the actors for the space of a month, and of finally putting on a production which indeed entertained and aroused admiration, but which on account of conditions hardly possible to fulfil more than once, could not maintain its place in the repertory. Still I am perfectly willing that such attempts should here and there be made, for, on the whole, failure does no harm.

Since men are not to get rid of longing and aspiration, it is salutary for them to direct their unsatisfied idealism towards some definite object, to work, for instance, towards depicting a mighty though vanished past seriously and worthily in the present. Now actors as well as poets and readers have the opportunity to study and see Shakespeare, and, through their endeavors to attain the unattainable, disclose the true inner capabilities and potentialities of their own nature.

Though in these respects I completely approve of the valuable efforts of my old co-worker, I must confess that I differ from him in some of his utterances; as, for instance, that “Lady Macbeth is a tender, loving soul, and as such should be played.” I do not consider such remarks to be really the author’s opinion, but rather paradoxes, which in view of the weighty authority of our author can only work great harm.

It is in the nature of the case, and Tieck himself has presented significant illustrations of the fact, that an actor who does not feel himself to be quite in agreement with the conventional portrayal, may in clever fashion modify and adjust it to himself and his own nature, and fit the new interpretation so well as to provide, as it were, a new and brilliant creation, and indemnify us for the clever fiction with unexpected and delightful new grounds of comparison and contrast.

This we must admit as valid; but we cannot approve the case where the theorist makes certain intimations to the actor, whereby the latter is led astray to portray the rôle in a new manner and style against the obvious intention of the poet.

From many viewpoints such an undertaking is questionable. The public is looking for authority always; and it is right. For do we not act similarly in taking counsel in joy and sorrow with those who are well versed in the wisdom of art and of life? Whoever then has acquired any legitimate authority in any field should strive, by continual assiduity in holding close to the line of the true and the right, to preserve that authority in inviolable sanctity.

An important paper is Tieck’s explanation of the _Piccolomini_ and the _Wallenstein_. I saw these plays develop from beginning to end, and I am filled with admiration at the degree of penetration which he shows in treating a work which, although one of the most excellent not only on the German stage but on all stages, yet in itself is unequal, and for that reason often fails to satisfy the critic, although the crowd, which does not take the separate parts with such strictness, is necessarily charmed with it as a whole.

Most of the places where Tieck finds something to criticize, I find reason to consider as pathological. If Schiller had not been suffering from a long wasting disease, which finally killed him, the whole thing would have been different. Our correspondence, which relates in the clearest way the circumstances under which _Wallenstein_ was written, will stimulate thoughtful people to much profitable reflection, and persuade them to think ever more seriously how closely our æsthetics is connected with physiology, pathology, and physics: in this way they may realize the light which these sciences throw upon the conditions to which individuals as well as whole nations, the most extensive world-epochs as well as daily affairs, are subjected.

ON DIDACTIC POETRY

(1827)

Didactic poetry is not a distinct poetic style or genre in the same sense as the lyric, epic, and dramatic. Every one will understand this who recognizes that the latter differ in form, and therefore didactic poetry, which derives its name from its content, cannot be put in the same category.

All poetry should be instructive, but unobviously so. It should draw the attention of a reader to the idea which is of value to be imparted; but he himself must draw the lesson out of it, as he does out of life.

Didactic or schoolmasterly poetry is a hybrid between poetry and rhetoric. For that reason, as it approximates now one and now the other, it is able to possess more or less of poetic value. But, like descriptive and satirical poetry, it is always a secondary and subordinate species, which in a true æsthetic is always placed between the art of poetry and the art of speech. The intrinsic worth of didactic poetry, that is to say, of an edifying art-work, written with charm and vigor, and graced with rhythm and melody and the ornament of imaginative power, is for that reason in no way lessened. From the rhymed chronicles, from the verse-maxims of the old pedagogues, down to the best of this class, all have their value, considered in their place and taken at their proper worth.

If one examines the matter closely and without prejudice, it strikes one that didactic poetry is valuable for the sake of its popular appeal. Even the most talented poet should feel himself honored to have treated in this style a chapter of useful knowledge. The English have some highly praiseworthy examples of this style. With jest and seriousness they curry favor with the crowd, and then discuss in explanatory notes whatever the reader must know in order to understand the poem. The teacher in the field of æsthetics, ethics, or history has a fine chance to systematize and clarify this chapter and acquaint his students with the merit of the best works of this kind, not according to the utility of their contents, but with reference to the greater or less degree of their poetical value.

This subject should properly be quite omitted from a course on æsthetics, but for the sake of those who have studied poetry and rhetoric, it might be presented in special lectures, perhaps public. Here a true comprehension, as everywhere, will prove of great advantage to practice; for many people will grasp the difficulty of weaving together a piece out of knowledge and imagination, of binding two opposed elements together into a living bodily whole. The lecturer should reveal the means by which this reconciliation can be made, and his auditors, thereby guarded against mistakes, might each attempt in his own way to produce a similar effect.

Among the many ways and means of effecting such a fusion, good humor is the most certain, and could also be considered the most suitable, were pure humor not so rare.

No more singular undertaking could easily be thought of than to turn the geology of a district into a didactic, and indeed highly imaginative, poem; yet this is what a member of the Geological Society of London has done, in an attempt to popularize in this way a subject, and promote a study usually insufferable to the thought of travelers.

SUPERSTITION AND POETRY

(1823)

Superstition is the poetry of life; both build an imaginary world, and between the things of the actual, palpable world they anticipate the most marvelous connections. Sympathy and antipathy govern everywhere.

Poetry is ever freeing itself from such fetters as it arbitrarily imposes upon itself; superstition, on the contrary, can be compared to the magic cords which draw together ever the tighter, the more one struggles against them. The time of greatest enlightenment is not secure from it; let it strike an uncultured century or epoch, and the clouded mind of poor humanity begins to strive after the impossible, to endeavor to have intercourse with and influence the supernatural, the far-distant, the future. A numerous world of marvels it constructs for itself, surrounded with a circle of darkness and gloom. Such clouds hang over whole centuries, and grow thicker and thicker. The imagination broods over a waste of sensuality; reason seems to have turned back like Astræa to its divine origin; wisdom is in despair, since she has no means of successfully asserting her rights. Superstition does not harm the poet, for he knows how to make its half-truths, to which he gives only a literary validity, count in manifold ways for good.

THE METHODS OF FRENCH CRITICISM

I (1817)

A wealth of terms for unfavorable criticism:--

A. abandonnée, absurde, arrogance, astuce.

B. bafoué, bête, bêtise, bouffissure, bouquin, bourgeois,
boursouflure, boutade, brisé, brutalité.

C. cabale, cagot, canaille, carcan, clique, contraire, créature.

D. déclamatoire, décrié, dégoût, dénigrement, dépourvu, déprayé,
désobligeant, détestable, diabolique, dur.

E. échoppe, enflure, engouement, ennui, ennuyeux, énorme, entortillé,
éphémères, épluché, espèce, étourneau.

F. factice, fadaise, faible, fainéant, fané, fastidieux, fatigant,
fatuité, faux, forcé, fou, fourré, friperie, frivole, furieux.

G. gâte, gauchement, gaucher, grimace, grossier, grossièrement.

H. haillons, honnêtement, honte, horreur.

I. imbécile, impertinence, impertinent, impuissant, incorrection,
indécis, indéterminé, indifférence, indignités, inégalité,
inguérissable, insipide, insipidité, insoutenable, intolérant,
jouets, irréfléchi.

L. laquais, léger, lésine, louche, lourd.

M. maladresse, manque, maroud, mauvais, médiocre, mépris, méprise,
mignardise, mordant.

N. négligé, négligence, noirceur, non-soin.

O. odieux.

P. passable, pauvreté, pénible, petites-maisons, peupropre,
pie-grièche, pitoyable, plat, platitude, pompeux, précieux,
puérilités.

R. rapsodie, ratatiné, rebattu, réchauffé, redondance, rétréci,
révoltant, ridicule, roquet.

S. sans succès, sifflets, singerie, somnifère, soporifique, sottise,
subalterne.

T. terrassé, tombée, traînée, travers, triste.

V. vague, vexé, vide, vieillerie, volumineux.

A scanty store for praise:--

A. animé, applaudie.

B. brillant.

C. charmant, correct.

E. esprit.

F. facile, finesse.

G. goût, grâce, gracieux, grave.

I. invention, justesse.

L. léger, légèreté, libre.

N. nombreux.

P. piquant, prodigieux, pur.

R. raisonnable.

S. spirituel.

V. verve.

“Words are the image of the soul; yet not an image, but rather a shadow! Expressing roughly, and signifying gently, all that we have, all that we have had in our experience! What was,--where has it gone? and what is that which is with us now? Ah! we speak! Swiftly we catch and seize the gifts of life as they fleet by us.”

* * * * *

The insight and character of a man express themselves most clearly in his judgments. In what he rejects, and what he accepts, he confesses to what is alien to him and what he has need of; and so each year designates unconsciously its present spiritual state, the compass of its past life.

Thus is it also with nations; their praise and censure must always be strictly consonant to their situation. We possessed Greek and Roman terminology of this sort; the foregoing would give an occasion for examining recent criticism. Like the individual man, the nation rests on traditional ideas, foreign more often than native, both inherited and original. But only in so far as a people has a native literature can it judge and understand the past as it does the present. The Englishman clings earnestly and stubbornly to classic antiquity, and will not be convinced that the Orient has produced poets, unless he can be shown parallel passages from Horace. What advantages, on the other hand, Shakespeare’s independent genius has brought to the nation can hardly be expressed.

The French by the introduction of badly understood classical principles and an over-nice sense of form so constrained their poetry that it must finally quite disappear, since it could not become more similar to prose. The German was on the right road and will find it again, as soon as he gives up the unhappy attempt to rank the _Nibelungen_ with the _Iliad_.

* * * * *

The favorable opinion which an excellent foreign writer has concerning us Germans may be appropriately related here. The Privy Councilor of the Russian Empire, Count Uvaroff, speaks thus in our honor, in a preface addressed to an old friend and partner, and contained in his valuable work on _Nonnus of Panopolis, the Poet_ (St. Petersburg, 1817): “The renaissance of archæology belongs to the Germans. Other peoples may have contributed preparatory work, but if the more advanced philological studies are ever developed to a complete whole, such a palingenesis or regeneration could only take place in Germany. For this reason, certain new views can hardly be expressed in any other language, and on that account I have written in German. I hope we have now given up the perverse notion of the political preëminence of this or that language. It is time that every one, unconcerned about the instrument itself, should select the language which fits most closely the circle of ideas in which his thought is moving.”

Here speaks an able, talented, intellectual man, whose mind is above the petty limitations of a cold literary patriotism, and who, like a master of musical art, draws the stops of his well-equipped organ which express the thought and feeling of each moment. Would that all cultivated Germans would take thankfully to heart these excellent and instructive words of his, and that intellectual youths would be inspired to make themselves proficient in several languages, as optional instruments of life!

II (1820)

In my article on “Urteilsworte französischer Kritiker,” a large number of unfavorable epithets used by French critics were set off against a scanty number of favorable words. In connection with this, the _Vrai Liberal_ of February 4, 1819, lodges a complaint against me and accuses me of an injustice towards the French nation. It does this with so much civility and charm as to make me ashamed of myself, were it not for the fact that behind my presentation of those words there lay a secret, which I hasten to reveal to it and to my readers at this time.

I admit without hesitation that the Brussels correspondent of the _Vrai Liberal_ is quite right when he points out how among the words of censure which I gave there appear many peculiar ones which one would not exactly expect; and in addition, that in the list of favorable words, several are lacking which ought to occur to every one. In order to explain this, and make the story clearer, I shall relate how I was induced to make this particular list.

When Herr von Grimm forty years ago achieved an honorable entrance into Parisian society, at that time extraordinarily talented and intellectual, and was recognized practically as a member of this distinguished company, he decided to send a written bulletin of literary and other interesting matters to princely personages and wealthy people in Germany, in order to entertain them, for a considerable remuneration, with the characteristic life of Paris circles, in regard to which they were curious in the outside world, because they could well consider Paris as the centre of the cultured world. These letters were to contain not merely news; but the best works of Diderot, _The Nun_, _Jacques the Fatalist_, etc., were by degrees inserted in such small portions that curiosity, attention, and eagerness were kept alive from number to number.

Through the favor of distinguished patrons I was permitted to peruse these bulletins regularly, and I did not neglect to study them with great deliberation and ardor. Now, if I may be permitted to say it to my credit, I always cheerfully recognized the superiority of the writers and their works, treasured and admired them, and also thankfully profited by them. For this reason I was soon struck in this correspondence of Grimm’s with the fact that in the stories, anecdotes, delineation of character, description, criticism, one noticed more of censure than of praise, more derogatory than laudatory terminology. One day in good humor, for my own consideration and edification, I began to take down the complete expressions, and later, half in jest and half in earnest, to split them up and arrange them alphabetically; and thus they remained on my desk for many years.

When finally the correspondence of Grimm was published, I read it as the document of a past age, but with care, and soon came upon many an expression which I had noticed before; and I was convinced anew that the censure by far exceeded the praise. Then I hunted up the earlier work of mine and had it printed, for the sake of intellectual edification, which did not fail me. At the moment I was not able to give further attention to the matter; and it is therefore not unlikely that in so voluminous a work many a word of praise and blame that has escaped me may be found.

But in order that this reproach, which appeared to concern a whole nation, may not be left clinging to a single author, I shall reserve the privilege of discussing this important literary topic on more general lines in the near future.

ON CRITICISM

(1821-24)

I

Criticism is either destructive or constructive. The former is very easy; for one need only set up some imaginary standard, some model or other, however foolish this may be, and then boldly assert that the work of art under consideration does not measure up to that standard, and therefore is of no value. That settles the matter, and one can without any more ado declare that the poet has not come up to one’s requirements. In this way the critic frees himself of all obligations of gratitude toward the artist.

Constructive criticism is much harder. It asks: What did the author set out to do? Was his plan reasonable and sensible, and how far did he succeed in carrying it out? If these questions are answered with discernment and sympathy, we may be of real assistance to the author in his later works, for even in his first attempts he has undoubtedly taken certain preliminary steps which approach the level of our criticism.

Perhaps we should call attention to another point which is altogether too frequently overlooked, namely, that the critic must judge a work of art more for the sake of the author than of the public. Every day we see how, without the least regard for the opinions of reviewers, some drama or novel is received by men and women in the most divers individual ways, is praised, found fault with, given or refused a place in the heart, merely as it happens to appeal to the personal idiosyncrasy of each reader.

II

Criticism is a practice of the Moderns. What does this mean? Just this: If you read a book and let it work upon you, and yield yourself up entirely to its influence, then, and only then, will you arrive at a correct judgment of it.

III

Some of my admiring readers have told me for a long time that instead of expressing a judgment on books, I describe the influence which they have had on me. And at bottom this is the way all readers criticize, even if they do not communicate an opinion or formulate ideas about it to the public. The scholar finds nothing new in a book, and therefore cannot praise it, while the young student, eager for knowledge, finds that knowledge increased, and a stimulus given to his culture. The one is stirred, while the other remains cold. This explains why the reception of books is so varied.

IV

I am more and more convinced that whenever one has to express an opinion on the actions or on the writings of others, unless this be done from a certain one-sided enthusiasm, or from a loving interest in the person and the work, the result is hardly worth considering. Sympathy and enjoyment in what we see are in fact the only reality; and from such reality, reality as a natural product follows. All else is vanity.

ON SHAKESPEARE

WILHELM MEISTER’S CRITIQUE OF _HAMLET_

(1795)

Wilhelm had scarcely read one or two of Shakespeare’s plays, till their effect on him became so strong that he could go no farther. His whole soul was in commotion. He sought an opportunity to speak with Jarno; to whom, on meeting with him, he expressed his boundless gratitude for such delicious entertainment.

“I clearly enough foresaw,” said Jarno, “that you would not remain insensible to the charms of the most extraordinary and most admirable of all writers.”

“Yes,” exclaimed our friend, “I cannot recollect that any book, any man, any incident of my life, has produced such important effects on me, as the precious works to which by your kindness I have been directed. They seem as if they were performances of some celestial genius, descending among men, to make them, by the mildest instructions, acquainted with themselves. They are no fictions! You would think, while reading them, you stood before the unclosed awful Books of Fate, while the whirlwind of most impassioned life was howling through the leaves, and tossing them fiercely to and fro. The strength and tenderness, the power and peacefulness, of this man, have so astonished and transported me, that I long vehemently for the time when I shall have it in my power to read farther.”

“Bravo!” said Jarno, holding out his hand, and squeezing our friend’s. “This is as it should be! And the consequences, which I hope for, will likewise surely follow.”

“I wish,” said Wilhelm, “I could but disclose to you all that is going on within me even now. All the anticipations I ever had regarding man and his destiny, which have accompanied me from youth upwards, often unobserved by myself, I find developed and fulfilled in Shakespeare’s writings. It seems as if he cleared up every one of our enigmas to us, though we cannot say, Here or there is the word of solution. His men appear like natural men, and yet they are not. These, the most mysterious and complex productions of creation, here act before us as if they were watches, whose dial plates and cases were of crystal, which pointed out, according to their use, the course of the hours and minutes; while, at the same time, you could discern the combination of wheels and springs that turned them. The few glances I have cast over Shakespeare’s world incite me, more than anything beside, to quicken my footsteps forward into the actual world, to mingle in the flood of destinies that is suspended over it, and at length, if I shall prosper, to draw a few cups from the great ocean of true nature, and to distribute them from off the stage among the thirsting people of my native land.”...

* * * * *

Seeing the company so favorably disposed, Wilhelm now hoped he might further have it in his power to converse with them on the poetic merit of the plays which might come before them. “It is not enough,” said he next day, when they were all again assembled, “for the actor merely to glance over a dramatic work, to judge of it by his first impression, and thus, without investigation, to declare his satisfaction or dissatisfaction with it. Such things may be allowed in a spectator, whose purpose it is rather to be entertained and moved than formally to criticize. But the actor, on the other hand, should be prepared to give a reason for his praise or censure; and how shall he do this, if he have not taught himself to penetrate the sense, the views, the feelings of his author? A common error is to form a judgment of a drama from a single part in it, and to look upon this part itself in an isolated point of view, not in its connection with the whole. I have noticed this within a few days so clearly in my own conduct that I will give you the account as an example, if you please to hear me patiently.

“You all know Shakespeare’s incomparable _Hamlet_; our public reading of it at the castle yielded every one of us the greatest satisfaction. On that occasion we proposed to act the play; and I, not knowing what I undertook, engaged to play the prince’s part. This I conceived that I was studying, while I began to get by heart the strongest passages, the soliloquies, and those scenes in which force of soul, vehemence and elevation of feeling have the freest scope, where the agitated heart is allowed to display itself with touching expressiveness.

“I further conceived that I was penetrating quite into the spirit of the character, while I endeavored, as it were, to take upon myself the load of deep melancholy under which my prototype was laboring, and in this humor to pursue him through the strange labyrinths of his caprices and his singularities. Thus learning, thus practising, I doubted not but I should by and bye become one person with my hero.

“But the farther I advanced, the more difficult did it become for me to form any image of the whole, in its general bearings; till at last it seemed as if impossible. I next went through the entire piece, without interruption; but here, too, I found much that I could not away with. At one time the characters, at another time the manner of displaying them, seemed inconsistent; and I almost despaired of finding any general tint, in which I might present my whole part with all its shadings and variations. In such devious paths I toiled, and wandered long in vain; till at length a hope arose that I might reach my aim in quite a new way.

“I set about investigating every trace of Hamlet’s character, as it had shown itself before his father’s death; I endeavored to distinguish what in it was independent of this mournful event, independent of the terrible events that followed; and what most probably the young man would have been had no such thing occurred.

“Soft, and from a noble stem, this royal flower had sprung up under the immediate influences of majesty: the idea of moral rectitude with that of princely elevation, the feeling of the good and dignified with the consciousness of high birth, had in him been unfolded simultaneously. He was a prince, by birth a prince; and he wished to reign, only that good men might be good without obstruction. Pleasing in form, polished by nature, courteous from the heart, he was meant to be the pattern of youth and the joy of the world.

“Without any prominent passion, his love for Ophelia was a still presentiment of sweet wants. His zeal in knightly accomplishments was not entirely his own: it needed to be quickened and inflamed by praise bestowed on others for excelling in them. Pure in sentiment, he knew the honorable-minded, and could prize the rest which an upright spirit tastes on the bosom of a friend. To a certain degree he had learned to discern and value the good and the beautiful in arts and sciences; the mean, the vulgar, was offensive to him; and, if hatred could take root in his tender soul, it was only so far as to make him properly despise the false and changeful insects of a court, and play with them in easy scorn. He was calm in his temper, artless in his conduct, neither pleased with idleness, nor too violently eager for employment. The routine of a university he seemed to continue when at court. He possessed more mirth of humor than of heart: he was a good companion, pliant, courteous, discreet, and able to forget and forgive an injury, yet never able to unite himself with those who overstepped the limits of the right, the good, and the becoming.

“When we read the piece again, you shall judge whether I am yet on the proper track. I hope at least to bring forward passages that shall support my opinion in its main points.”

This delineation was received with warm approval; the company imagined they foresaw that Hamlet’s manner of proceeding might now be very satisfactorily explained; they applauded this method of penetrating into the spirit of a writer. Each of them proposed to himself to take up some piece, and study it on these principles, and so unfold the author’s meaning....

Loving Shakespeare as our friend did, he failed not to lead round the conversation to the merits of that dramatist. Expressing, as he entertained, the liveliest hopes of the new epoch which these exquisite productions must form in Germany, he erelong introduced his _Hamlet_, which play had busied him so much of late.

Serlo declared that he would long ago have represented the play had it at all been possible, and that he himself would willingly engage to act Polonius. He added, with a smile, “An Ophelia, too, will certainly turn up, if we had but a Prince.”

Wilhelm did not notice that Aurelia seemed a little hurt at her brother’s sarcasm. Our friend was in his proper vein, becoming copious and didactic, expounding how he would have _Hamlet_ played. He circumstantially delivered to his hearers the opinions we before saw him busied with; taking all the trouble possible to make his notion of the matter acceptable, skeptical as Serlo showed himself regarding it. “Well, then,” said the latter finally, “suppose we grant you all this, what will you explain by it?”

“Much, everything,” said Wilhelm. “Conceive a prince such as I have painted him, and that his father suddenly dies. Ambition and the love of rule are not the passions that inspire him. As a king’s son, he would have been contented; but now he is first constrained to consider the difference which separates a sovereign from a subject. The crown was not hereditary; yet his father’s longer possession of it would have strengthened the pretensions of an only son, and secured his hopes of succession. In place of this, he now beholds himself excluded by his uncle, in spite of specious promises, most probably forever. He is now poor in goods and favor, and a stranger in the scene which from youth he had looked upon as his inheritance. His temper here assumes its first mournful tinge. He feels that now he is not more, that he is less than a private nobleman; he offers himself as the servant of every one; he is not courteous and condescending, he is needy and degraded.

“His past condition he remembers as a vanished dream. It is in vain that his uncle strives to cheer him, to present his situation in another point of view. The feeling of his nothingness will not leave him.

“The second stroke that came upon him wounded deeper, bowed still more. It was the marriage of his mother. The faithful, tender son had yet a mother, when his father passed away. He hoped in the company of his surviving noble-minded parent, to reverence the heroic form of the departed: but his mother, too, he loses; and it is something worse than death that robs him of her. The trustful image, which a good child loves to form of its parents, is gone. With the dead there is no help, on the living no hold. Moreover, she is a woman; and her name is Frailty, like that of all her sex.

“Now only does he feel completely bowed down, now only orphaned; and no happiness of life can repay what he has lost. Not reflective or sorrowful by nature, reflection and sorrow have become for him a heavy obligation. It is thus that we see him first enter on the scene. I do not think that I have mixed aught foreign with the play, or overcharged a single feature of it.”

Serlo looked at his sister, and said: “Did I give thee a false picture of our friend? He begins well: he has still many things to tell us, many to persuade us of.” Wilhelm asseverated loudly that he meant not to persuade, but to convince; he begged for another moment’s patience.

“Figure to yourselves this youth,” cried he, “this son of princes; conceive him vividly, bring his state before your eyes and then observe him when he learns that his father’s spirit walks; stand by him in the terrors of the night, when even the venerable ghost appears before him. He is seized with boundless horror; he speaks to the mysterious form; he sees it beckon him; he follows and hears. The fearful accusation of his uncle rings in his ears, the summons to revenge, and the piercing, oft-repeated prayer, Remember me!

“And, when the ghost has vanished, who is it that stands before us? A young hero panting for vengeance? A prince by birth, rejoicing to be called to punish the usurper of his crown? No! trouble and astonishment take hold of the solitary young man: he grows bitter against smiling villains, swears that he will not forget the spirit, and concludes with the significant ejaculation,--

“‘The time is out of joint: O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!’

“In these words, I imagine, will be found the key to Hamlet’s whole procedure. To me it is clear that Shakespeare meant, in the present case, to represent the effects of a great action laid upon a soul unfit for the performance of it. In this view the whole play seems to me to be composed. There is an oak-tree planted in a costly jar, which should have borne only pleasant flowers in its bosom: the roots expand, the jar is shivered.

“A lovely, pure, noble, and most moral nature, without the strength of nerve which forms a hero, sinks beneath a burden it cannot bear and must not cast away. All duties are holy for him: the present is too hard. Impossibilities have been required of him,--not in themselves impossibilities, but such for him. He winds and turns, and torments himself; he advances and recoils; is ever put in mind, ever puts himself in mind, at last does all but lose his purpose from his thoughts, yet still without recovering his peace of mind.”

Several people entering interrupted the discussion. They were musical dilettanti, who commonly assembled at Serlo’s once a week, and formed a little concert. Serlo himself loved music much: he used to maintain that a player without taste for it never could attain a distinct conception and feeling of the scenic art. “As a man performs,” he would observe, “with far more ease and dignity when his gestures are accompanied and guided by a tune; so the player ought, in idea as it were, to set to music even his prose parts, that he may not monotonously slight them over in his individual style, but treat them in suitable alternation by time and measure.”

Aurelia seemed to give but little heed to what was passing: at last she conducted Wilhelm to another room; and going to the window, and looking out at the starry sky, she said to him, “You have more to tell us about Hamlet: I will not hurry you,--my brother must hear it as well as I; but let me beg to know your thoughts about Ophelia.”

“Of her there cannot much be said,” he answered; “for a few master-strokes complete her character. The whole being of Ophelia floats in sweet and ripe sensation. Kindness for the prince, to whose hand she may aspire, flows so spontaneously, her tender heart obeys its impulses so unresistingly, that both father and brother are afraid: both give her warning harshly and directly. Decorum, like the thin lawn upon her bosom, cannot hide the soft, still movements of her heart: it, on the contrary, betrays them. Her fancy is smit; her silent modesty breathes amiable desire; and if the friendly goddess Opportunity should shake the tree, its fruit would fall.”

“And then,” said Aurelia, “when she beholds herself forsaken, cast away, despised; when all is inverted in the soul of her crazed lover, and the highest changes to the lowest, and, instead of the sweet cup of love, he offers her the bitter’ cup of woe--”

“Her heart breaks,” cried Wilhelm; “the whole structure of her being is loosened from its joinings: her father’s death strikes fiercely against it, and the fair edifice altogether crumbles into fragments.”

Serlo, this moment entering, inquired about his sister, and, looking in the book which our friend had hold of, cried, “So you are again at _Hamlet_? Very good! Many doubts have arisen in me, which seem not a little to impair the canonical aspect of the play as you would have it viewed. The English themselves have admitted that its chief interest concludes with the third act; the last two lagging sorrily on, and scarcely uniting with the rest: and certainly about the end it seems to stand stock-still.”

“It is very possible,” said Wilhelm, “that some individuals of a nation, which has so many masterpieces to feel proud of, may be led by prejudice and narrowness of mind to form false judgments; but this cannot hinder us from looking with our own eyes, and doing justice where we see it due. I am very far from censuring the plan of _Hamlet_: on the other hand, I believe there never was a grander one invented; nay, it is not invented, it is real.”

“How do you demonstrate that?” inquired Serlo.

“I will not demonstrate anything,” said Wilhelm; “I will merely show you what my own conceptions of it are.”

Aurelia raised herself from her cushion, leaned upon her hand, and looked at Wilhelm, who, with the firmest assurance that he was in the right, went on as follows: “It pleases us, it flatters us, to see a hero acting on his own strength, loving and hating at the bidding of his heart, undertaking and completing casting every obstacle aside, and attaining some great end. Poets and historians would willingly persuade us that so proud a lot may fall to man. In _Hamlet_ we are taught another lesson; the hero is without a plan, but the play is full of plan. Here we have no villain punished on some self-conceived and rigidly accomplished scheme of vengeance. A horrid deed is done; it rolls along with all its consequences, dragging with it even the guiltless: the guilty perpetrator would, as it seems, evade the abyss made ready for him; yet he plunges in, at the very point by which he thinks he shall escape and happily complete his course.

“For it is the property of crime to extend its mischief over innocence, as it is of virtue to extend its blessings over many that deserve them not; while frequently the author of the one or the other is not punished or rewarded at all. Here in this play of ours, how strange! The Pit of darkness sends its spirit and demands revenge: in vain! All circumstances tend one way, and hurry to revenge: in vain! Neither earthly nor infernal thing may bring about what is reserved for Fate alone. The hour of judgment comes; the wicked falls with the good; one race is mowed away, that another may spring up.”

After a pause, in which they looked at one another, Serlo said, “You pay no great compliment to Providence, in thus exalting Shakespeare; and besides, it appears to me, that for the honor of your poet, as others for the honor of Providence, you ascribe to him an object and a plan such as he himself has never thought of.”

“Let me also put a question,” said Aurelia. “I have looked at Ophelia’s part again: I am contented with it, and confident that, under certain circumstances, I could play it. But tell me, should not the poet have furnished the insane maiden with another sort of songs? Could not some fragments out of melancholy ballads be selected for this purpose? Why put double meanings and lascivious insipidities in the mouth of this noble-minded girl?”

“Dear friend,” said Wilhelm, “even here I cannot yield you one iota. In these singularities, in this apparent impropriety, a deep sense is hid. Do we not understand from the very first what the mind of the good, soft-hearted girl was busied with? Silently she lived within herself, yet she scarce concealed her wishes, her longing: and how often may she have attempted, like an unskilful nurse, to lull her senses to repose with songs which only kept them more awake? But at last, when her self-command is altogether gone, when the secrets of her heart are hovering on her tongue, that tongue betrays her; and in the innocence of insanity she solaces herself, unmindful of king or queen, with the echo of her loose and well-beloved songs,--‘Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s Day,’ and ‘By Gis and by Saint Charity.’ ...”

* * * * *

“I must admit your picture of Ophelia to be just,” continued she; “I cannot now misunderstand the object of the poet: I must pity; though, as you paint her, I shall rather pity her than sympathize with her. But allow me here to offer a remark, which in these few days you have frequently suggested to me. I observe with admiration the correct, keen, penetrating glance with which you judge of poetry, especially dramatic poetry: the deepest abysses of invention are not hidden from you, the finest touches of representation cannot escape you. Without ever having viewed the objects in nature, you recognize the truth of their images: there seems, as it were, a presentiment of all the universe to lie in you, which by the harmonious touch of poetry is awakened and unfolded. For in truth,” continued she, “from without, you receive not much: I have scarcely seen a person that so little knew, so totally misknew, the people he lived with, as you do. Allow me to say it: in hearing you expound the mysteries of Shakespeare, one would think you had just descended from a synod of the gods, and had listened there while they were taking counsel how to form men; in seeing you transact with your fellows, I could imagine you to be the first large-born child of the Creation, standing agape, and gazing with strange wonderment and edifying good nature at lions and apes and sheep and elephants, and true-heartedly addressing them as your equals, simply because they were there, and in motion like yourself.”

“The feeling of my ignorance in this respect,” said Wilhelm, “often gives me pain; and I should thank you, worthy friend, if you would help me to get a little better insight into life. From youth, I have been accustomed to direct the eyes of my spirit inwards rather than outwards; and hence it is very natural that, to a certain extent, I should be acquainted with man, while of men I have not the smallest knowledge....”

* * * * *

One of the conditions under which our friend had gone upon the stage was not acceded to by Serlo without some limitations. Wilhelm had required that _Hamlet_ should be played entire and unmutilated: the other had agreed to this strange stipulation, in so far as it was _possible_. On this point they had many a contest; for as to what was possible or not possible, and what parts of the piece could be omitted without mutilating it, the two were of very different opinions.

Wilhelm was still in that happy season when one cannot understand how, in the woman one loves, in the writer one honors, there should be anything defective. The feeling they excite in us is so entire, so accordant with itself, that we cannot help attributing the same perfect harmony to the objects themselves. Serlo again was willing to discriminate, perhaps too willing: his acute understanding could usually discern in any work of art nothing but a more or less _im_perfect whole. He thought that, as pieces usually stood, there was little reason to be chary about meddling with them; that of course Shakespeare, and particularly _Hamlet_, would need to suffer much curtailment.

But, when Serlo talked of separating the wheat from the chaff, Wilhelm would not hear of it. “It is not chaff and wheat together,” said he: “it is a trunk with boughs, twigs, leaves, buds, blossoms, and fruit. Is not the one there with the others, and by means of them?” To which Serlo would reply that people did not bring a whole tree upon the table; that the artist was required to present his guests with silver apples in platters of silver. They exhausted their invention in similitudes, and their opinions seemed still farther to diverge.

Our friend was on the borders of despair when on one occasion, after much debating, Serlo counseled him to take the simple plan,--to make a brief resolution, to grasp his pen, to peruse the tragedy; dashing out whatever would not answer, compressing several personages into one: and if he was not skilled in such proceedings, or had not heart enough for going through with them, he might leave the task to him, the manager, who would engage to make short work with it.

“That is not our bargain,” answered Wilhelm. “How can you, with all your taste, show so much levity?”

“My friend,” cried Serlo, “you yourself will erelong feel it and show it. I know too well how shocking such a mode of treating works is: perhaps it never was allowed on any theatre till now. But where, indeed, was ever one so slighted as ours? Authors force us on this wretched clipping system, and the public tolerates it. How many pieces have we, pray, which do not overstep the measure of our numbers, of our decorations and theatrical machinery, of the proper time, of the fit alternation of dialogue, and the physical strength of the actor? And yet we are to play, and play, and constantly give novelties. Ought we not to profit by our privilege, then, since we accomplish just as much by mutilated works as by entire ones? It is the public itself that grants the privilege. Few Germans, perhaps few men of any modern nation, have a proper sense of an æsthetic whole:--they praise and blame by passages; they are charmed by passages; and who has greater reason to rejoice at this than actors, since the stage is ever but a patched and piece-work matter?”

“Is!” cried Wilhelm; “but _must_ it ever be so? Must everything that is continue? Convince me not that you are right, for no power on earth should force me to abide by any contract which I had concluded with the grossest misconceptions.”

Serlo gave a merry turn to the business, and persuaded him to review once more the many conversations they had had together about _Hamlet_, and himself to invent some means of properly reforming the piece.

After a few days, which he had spent alone, our friend returned with a cheerful look. “I am much mistaken,” cried he, “if I have not now discovered how the whole is to be managed: nay, I am convinced that Shakespeare himself would have arranged it so, had not his mind been too exclusively directed to the ruling interest, and perhaps misled by the novels which furnished him with his materials.”

“Let us hear,” said Serlo, placing himself with an air of solemnity upon the sofa: “I will listen calmly, but judge with rigor.”

“I am not afraid of you,” said Wilhelm; “only hear me. In the composition of this play, after the most accurate investigation and the most mature reflection, I distinguish two classes of objects. The first are the grand internal relations of the persons and events, the powerful effects which arise from the characters and proceedings of the main figures: these, I hold, are individually excellent; and the order in which they are presented cannot be improved. No kind of interference must be suffered to destroy them, or even essentially to change their form. These are the things which stamp themselves deep into the soul, which all men long to see, which no one dares to meddle with. Accordingly, I understand, they have almost wholly been retained in all our German theatres. But our countrymen have erred, in my opinion, with regard to the second class of objects, which may be observed in this tragedy: I allude to the external relations of the persons, whereby they are brought from place to place, or combined in various ways, by certain accidental incidents. These they have looked upon as very unimportant; have spoken of them only in passing, or left them out altogether. Now, indeed, it must be owned, these threads are slack and slender; yet they run through the entire piece, and bind together much that would otherwise fall asunder, and does actually fall asunder, when you cut them off, and imagine you have done enough and more, if you have left the ends hanging.